Angel's Ashes
by WitchGirl
Summary: The flames crackled and leapt as the image dissolved in one last blaze of glory. Her eyes stared out at me, slowly blackening until they were ash and she was gone from me again. She was the second soldier down, and not the last by far.


**_Angel's Ashes  
_**A fic by Carly

**Summary: **Angel sits in front of his fire with his sketchbook, contemplating those lost and those who will inevitably be lost to him in the future. Refrences: Doyle, Darla, Lilah, Cordy, Fred.

**Setting:** Sometime near the end of Season Five, post-Shells but pre-Never Fade Away. SPOILERS GALORE, especially for Season Five, as well as some foreshadowing for what happened in the finale of season five.

**_Author's Note:_** Er... Long-time Angel-watcher, first time Angel fic-writer. That doesn't by any means mean that I'm new to the concept of Fan Fiction writing. I had started working on a Lorne story but figured this would be a better introduction to the category for me. So... I hope you enjoy. And I tried to keep Angel as in character as possible. Cheers.

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**Angel's Ashes**

The flames crackled and leapt as the image dissolved in one last blaze of glory. Her eyes stared out at me, slowly blackening until they were ash and she was gone from me again. She was the second soldier down, and not the last by far. But she had, at least, lent me a sense of closure, the decency of a goodbye, the romance of one first and last kiss. There's no better first kiss then the last one. She helped me learn my place in things, she helped me find my footing again, she pushed me to carry on without her because she couldn't be there. She had been granted one last wish, which was to see me one last time.

Others weren't so lucky.

Doyle

Darla

Lilah

… Cordelia

… … Fred…

The death toll just keeps rising. In war there are casualties. But while I can't say much for Lilah and Darla, who brought this upon themselves, I can say that the others didn't deserve to die the way they did.

I looked down at the paper resting in my lap. This one was different from the rest. She always had been. She was forced into this life. Five years of torment only to end like this. Her gaze, etched in charcoal, continued to haunt me. But she was different on paper. I could never capture her grace.

I see her every day. She walks around the office like a ghost. She's not there anymore. That last spark of life is gone from her eyes. But her murderer is lost too. No one gained anything from that tragedy, not even the instigator. Knox is dead. Illyria is in limbo. And Fred… Fred is gone.

I hope that, perhaps, some good will come of this. Maybe like Cordelia, Fred could send me one last word, a sign of what to do next, how to go on…

But that won't happen. Fred isn't just dead. She's gone.

As much as it pains me to say it, I always knew that Spike was right. He loved her, as any of us had loved her, and yet he could always see with the clarity of the soulless demon he used to be. It wasn't too long ago, after all, that he was still that soulless shell. I suppose, in retrospect, it hasn't been that long for me either. But Fred was the last person to ever be anything less than she was. And now, it wasn't too long ago that she wasn't a soulless shell.

"… _Feels like we ought to have known…"_

I think I've felt closer to Spike in that moment than I ever have in the past, and we have had a long past together. Too often we have loved the same girl. And while that always only served to exacerbate our mutual hatred, Fred was different. She had always been different. For once in our very long lives, a girl had brought us together instead of driving us apart. And it was in our shared and silent grief over her loss that we truly understood each other at last, if only for a brief moment.

My tolerance for Spike around the office has increased tremendously and in turn, I think his wish to make my life a living hell as diminished a bit. Because she's not here anymore. So what's the point? Everything that had ever happened before Illyria seems so petty now. And there really never was a point to begin with.

Doyle was the first. I burned his portrait long ago, though it took me a while to gain the willpower to do so. He told me he wasn't a hero. But he had no idea. He was more than I ever could be, and I have abused my long life while he would have probably used it well. I should have died long ago, at Darla's hungry hands, but I live. He should have lived, long into the future, with a smile and a quip, but he's dead. And his silence coils around my throat and I always waited for it to constrict, like a boa aiming to feed. But it stayed there, slack and cold. His silence was as dead as he was. And when I realized that there wasn't any trace of him anymore but the silence that consumed me was when I tore his portrait from my sketchbook and tossed it to the flames.

Darla was inevitably next. Another soul I couldn't save. But in the end, perhaps she saved herself. She loved Conner like a mother should. And even when he was wild and angry, I could still see his mother's fire burning in his eyes. She lives in him. She died for him. And she's dead in me. I burned her image almost instantly. Baby Conner was in my arms as I sat before my fireplace in the Hyperion and tore her paper to shreds. Darla was not a matter I wished to dwell on. She was dead. She should have died and have stayed dead long ago, if not of the original syphilis then back in Sunnydale eight years ago. But for the second time, she was given a taste of life and wanted greedily to keep it at all costs… That is, until Conner came around. I suppose that's the redeeming quality of Darla in my eyes. She gave everything for Conner. She told me to take care of him. And perhaps when I failed in that endeavor I felt I failed her, too, on some level. So I'm sorry Darla. But I'm sure, as things have turned out, you know there are more important things for me to dwell on. I felt sorry that you had to die. But I couldn't mourn you. You were lost long before I ever met you.

Lilah was a similar case, and I felt more sorry for Wes than I did for her when the beast inside Cordelia slit her throat. Well, _I_ did, but I can't say the same for Angelus. He was just happy to have squirm-free snack food. I don't even think I had an image of her to burn. No, no, I left that bridge for Wesley. He was burning all his bridges at that point anyway, disconnecting himself from all he had known… Lilah had been his issue, his masochistic desire, his sympathizing temptress. Nonetheless, I have to say Lilah's death was a little unfair, though I'd be lying if I didn't say I found it rather poetic. She had always been a bitchy cutthroat liar and then she was killed by a lying bitch that cut her throat. To clarify, Cordelia wasn't the bitch, the parasite inside her was.

Which only brings me to my next personal tragedy. Darla and Lilah were never particularly good souls. Unlike Doyle, they weren't heroes or champions, and on some level they deserved what they got. Cordelia was our second soldier down. Her words, of course. In a way— that had been what she'd called Doyle, our 'first soldier down.' She was a fighter; she had always been a fighter, even when she was in high school she always chose to fight. She had grown since I'd first met her, which was not long after I'd had my first honest encounter with Buffy and her friends. Then, she had been nothing more to me than a cheerleading schoolgirl whose biggest problem was what she was going to wear to prom. But when I saw her again, hobnobbing with directors and would-be actors at that party, I was grateful for the familiar face. And when she started working with me, I was very grateful for a familiar friend. I saw more in her, day by day, and even until the day she died I always saw something new. She never stopped surprising me. I think, perhaps, she was the best friend I have ever had. When I lost her, I had nothing left to hold onto. She had been my life preserver, always there to cheer me on and send me on the right path. Her visions held more than our next innocent to save, they held my purpose. My path to Shanshu. And her bright smile could always make the darkest night seem like noon. The painless kind of noon, the noon I don't burst into flames in. It's taken me until now to burn her picture. I had kept it in my jacket pocket, close to my heart. But I remembered her words and know that it's about time I let her go.

I knew she wouldn't stay with me forever, just like I knew Buffy wouldn't be with me forever. But I always thought that Cordelia would have stayed just a little longer, at least through the darkest of dark nights, this upcoming apocalypse, _the_ apocalypse… I need you, Cordy. You bring the light I could never fully appreciate. I suppose that's always the case. When I was alive, I never cared much for the day. I slept through it mostly, from hangovers or wild nights with random girls. But when I became a vampire, there was nothing more I ever wanted then to step out into the sunlight. With Cordy gone, it's like I had always been alive; I had always been able to step into the sunlight only I hadn't realized it. And now that my sun has set, I'm really alone.

But I wasn't _really_ alone until I lost the moon as well. The moon that still tried her hardest to shine as bright as possible in the sun's absence. The moon that did all in her power to keep the world turning and the tides changing and life moving forward. Until her life suddenly stopped.

No. I wasn't _truly_ alone until I lost our third soldier, until I lost Fred.

Doyle. Darla. Lilah. Cordelia. Fred.

Who's next on the list?

I stare down at Fred's portrait, her wavy hair falling lightly on her shoulders, her laugh sparkling. I never see her laugh anymore. Illyria doesn't even smile. I'll never see Fred's face again.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Fred died so swiftly after Cordelia, and they were good friends, sisters in arms, heroes and champions. I look at the fire, where the last of Cordelia's portrait smolders in the red and orange. Perhaps it is also time to say goodbye to Fred.

But when I rip out her image, I see blank pages at my disposal. I'm afraid to draw. I am afraid to use them for what they're there for. Because I know that, eventually, no matter what I draw, I will have to burn it all.

All of the friends I have left, all of my life I have left, could be gone at any moment. Wesley. Gunn. Lorne. Conner. Even Lindsey, Eve and Spike. As much as I detest to admit it, they're still a part of me in some distorted way.

I pick up my pen that spells my fate, that spells the fate of the world. I put it to paper and wonder which aspect of my life I will be forced to burn next.


End file.
